CD REVIEW: 'A Real Feast for the Ears'
Paavo Järvi and the Cincinnati Symphony Play Debussy
By David Hart
Birmingham [U.K.] Post - 21 July 2005
Debussy: Nocturnes; La mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Berceuse héroïque
Telarc (CD-80617)
By all accounts Paavo Järvi has worked wonders with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since he became music director in 2001. If this sumptuous recording of Debussy's orchestral masterworks is typical they are indeed a force to be reckoned with.
The sound quality of the CD is rich and detailed — Cincinnati's Music Hall obviously has no acoustic drawbacks — and the engineers have achieved perfect instrumental balance. One or two violin solos, as in 'Nuages' from the Nocturnes and the first movement of La mer, do seem a little too foregrounded, but it's a minor niggle. The all- important wind contributions, like the flute opening of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and the distant little fanfares in the middle of 'Fêtes', are ideally positioned on the aural canvas, and the women of the May Festival Chorus, who make the Sirènes sound particularly sultry, as they should be, are blended beautifully into the orchestral fabric of the piece.
There are no interpretative surprises. Järvi scrupulously observes Debussy's dynamics and tempo marks, shaping phrases and textures to produce the required levels of spaciousness and languor. Despite much of this being music you can just wallow in, Järvi keeps a close grip on its underlying, if often subtly stated, sense of momentum.
Both main works, Nocturnes and La mer, are spectacularly well played, as is the Prélude and a comparative rarity, Berceuse héroïque, which Debussy wrote in 1914 to mark the fall of Belgium. With strings as sonorous, shimmeringly delicate and disciplined as these, and wind and brass players whose rounded, beautifully focused tone is truly wondrous, this benchmark release will be hard to beat. A real feast for the ears.
By David Hart
Birmingham [U.K.] Post - 21 July 2005
Debussy: Nocturnes; La mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Berceuse héroïque
Telarc (CD-80617)
By all accounts Paavo Järvi has worked wonders with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra since he became music director in 2001. If this sumptuous recording of Debussy's orchestral masterworks is typical they are indeed a force to be reckoned with.
The sound quality of the CD is rich and detailed — Cincinnati's Music Hall obviously has no acoustic drawbacks — and the engineers have achieved perfect instrumental balance. One or two violin solos, as in 'Nuages' from the Nocturnes and the first movement of La mer, do seem a little too foregrounded, but it's a minor niggle. The all- important wind contributions, like the flute opening of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and the distant little fanfares in the middle of 'Fêtes', are ideally positioned on the aural canvas, and the women of the May Festival Chorus, who make the Sirènes sound particularly sultry, as they should be, are blended beautifully into the orchestral fabric of the piece.
There are no interpretative surprises. Järvi scrupulously observes Debussy's dynamics and tempo marks, shaping phrases and textures to produce the required levels of spaciousness and languor. Despite much of this being music you can just wallow in, Järvi keeps a close grip on its underlying, if often subtly stated, sense of momentum.
Both main works, Nocturnes and La mer, are spectacularly well played, as is the Prélude and a comparative rarity, Berceuse héroïque, which Debussy wrote in 1914 to mark the fall of Belgium. With strings as sonorous, shimmeringly delicate and disciplined as these, and wind and brass players whose rounded, beautifully focused tone is truly wondrous, this benchmark release will be hard to beat. A real feast for the ears.
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